Padre Camorra was in the seventh heaven at the sight of so many pretty girls.  He stopped, looked back, nudged Ben-Zayb, chuckled and swore, saying, “And that one, and that one, my ink-slinger?  And that one over there, what say you?” In his contentment he even fell to using the familiar tu toward his friend and adversary.  Padre Salvi stared at him from time to time, but he took little note of Padre Salvi.  On the contrary, he pretended to stumble so that he might brush against the girls, he winked and made eyes at them.

“Punales!” he kept saying to himself.  “When shall I be the curate of Quiapo?”

Suddenly Ben-Zayb let go an oath, jumped aside, and slapped his hand on his arm; Padre Camorra in his excess of enthusiasm had pinched him.  They were approaching a dazzling senorita who was attracting the attention of the whole plaza, and Padre Camorra, unable to restrain his delight, had taken Ben-Zayb’s arm as a substitute for the girl’s.

It was Paulita Gomez, the prettiest of the pretty, in company with Isagani, followed by Dona Victorina.  The young woman was resplendent in her beauty:  all stopped and craned their necks, while they ceased their conversation and followed her with their eyes—­even Dona Victorina was respectfully saluted.

Paulita was arrayed in a rich camisa and panuelo of embroidered pina, different from those she had worn that morning to the church.  The gauzy texture of the pina set off her shapely head, and the Indians who saw her compared her to the moon surrounded by fleecy clouds.  A silk rose-colored skirt, caught up in rich and graceful folds by her little hand, gave majesty to her erect figure, the movement of which, harmonizing with her curving neck, displayed all the triumphs of vanity and satisfied coquetry.  Isagani appeared to be rather disgusted, for so many curious eyes fixed upon the beauty of his sweetheart annoyed him.  The stares seemed to him robbery and the girl’s smiles faithlessness.

Juanito saw her and his hump increased when he spoke to her.  Paulita replied negligently, while Dona Victorina called to him, for Juanito was her favorite, she preferring him to Isagani.

“What a girl, what a girl!” muttered the entranced Padre Camorra.

“Come, Padre, pinch yourself and let me alone,” said Ben-Zayb fretfully.

“What a girl, what a girl!” repeated the friar.  “And she has for a sweetheart a pupil of mine, the boy I had the quarrel with.”

“Just my luck that she’s not of my town,” he added, after turning his head several times to follow her with his looks.  He was even tempted to leave his companions to follow the girl, and Ben-Zayb had difficulty in dissuading him.  Paulita’s beautiful figure moved on, her graceful little head nodding with inborn coquetry.

Our promenaders kept on their way, not without sighs on the part of the friar-artilleryman, until they reached a booth surrounded by sightseers, who quickly made way for them.  It was a shop of little wooden figures, of local manufacture, representing in all shapes and sizes the costumes, races, and occupations of the country:  Indians, Spaniards, Chinese, mestizos, friars, clergymen, government clerks, gobernadorcillos, students, soldiers, and so on.